1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of horticultural containers for use with automatic transplanters. More specifically, the invention relates to a seedling flat which is provided with integral means for driving the seedling flat into a position for the ejection of seedlings from the seedling flat.
2. Related Art
Reusable seedling flats or plant trays (wherein the two terminologies are used interchangeably in the art and in this specification) are known in the art, however seedling flats for use with automatic transplanters have had the inherent disadvantage of requiring molded plastics of relatively high degree of hardness in order to provide sufficient strength and rigidity for use with automatic transplanters. The use of relatively inexpensive and light weight expanded polystyrene foam for the plant trays has not been possible due to the insufficient strength of the expanded polystyrene for use with previous methods of indexing the planting tray into position for ejection of seedlings. Another inherent disadvantage of existing plant trays is the lack of a means for consistent accurate positioning of the plant trays relative to the automatic transplanting mechanism to ensure proper ejection of seedlings from the plant trays.